Your manager's manager puts time on the calendar. It's a skip-level: just the two of you, or maybe your whole team, without your manager in the room.
Most people listen. They nod. Maybe they answer a question about how things are going. If they speak up at all, it's usually to give feedback about their manager.
Then the meeting ends, and a senior leader who has a say in your promotion walks away knowing almost nothing about you.
What the meeting is really for
It's easy to treat a skip-level as a check-in on your manager. Leaders often frame it that way themselves.
Set that aside. Walk into a skip-level thinking about you and your work. This is one of the few times a senior leader is sitting still and paying attention, with no agenda except hearing from people a level or two down. That's visibility you'd normally have to work hard to get.
You don't need to dominate the meeting. You need one good question.
Two kinds of questions that work
An asset question helps you understand what the leader cares about. The spirit of it is "what's keeping you up at night?" though you'll want better words than that. Try "What's the one thing you most need our team to get right this quarter?" or "What would success look like for your org by the end of the year?"
The answer is gold. Now you know what matters one level up, and you can point your work at it. You've also shown that you think about the business beyond your own tickets.
A strategy question shows you already know what's going on in the business. It opens with a statement, then asks. Something like:
"In the last quarterly update, our retention goal was trending behind. Our team is working on it by cutting onboarding time for new customers. From where you sit, what's the biggest thing standing between us and that number?"
That question says you read the numbers, you know how your work connects to them, and you want the view from their level. It gets you remembered.
"Isn't that just showing off?"
A lot of women pull back here. A strategy question can feel like waving your hand and saying "look at me."
The difference is intent. A good strategy question is one you actually want answered, asked in a way that shows you're paying attention to the business. The visibility comes from being curious at the right level.
If you don't care about the answer, don't ask it. Leaders can tell.
What to leave at the door
Two things tend to backfire.
The first is venting about your manager. Even when the feedback is fair, it becomes what the leader remembers about you. If there's a real problem, there are better channels for it.
The second is staying silent. In a skip-level, silence reads as someone without a point of view.
How to prepare
Before any meeting with a leader above your manager, write down one asset question and one strategy question. Look at the latest company update, all-hands notes, or this year's goals, and build your questions from what's there.
Then be ready to adjust. If the leader opens with a presentation, your best question might come from something they just said. That's fine. Walking in prepared is what makes it easy to raise your hand when the moment comes.
A test you can run this week
Find the next meeting on your calendar with anyone above your manager. Write both questions now, before you forget.
Then commit to asking one of them out loud before the meeting ends.
The leaders deciding your next move can only weigh what they've seen from you. Give them one good question to remember.
Need the words to open with? 50 Confident Phrases has them at 50confidentphrases.com.